


150 - Van Dates a Drag Queen

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: M/M, Reader-Insert, Van McPan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17404913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts “I know Van McPan has been requested already but please can you write one where the reader is a guy again??? Maybe vans first time dating a guy???” and “pleeease do more boy readers!!!!” - I present to you - Van dating a very fishy drag queen. You're welcome.





	150 - Van Dates a Drag Queen

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this as M/M and Van McCann/OMC, but as you'll read - our 'Reader' character doesn't really adhere to those tags. It's more so people can find the ~~good queer shit~~ haha.

The lighter flicked, flicked, flicked, but it did not light. You shook it again. Nothing. 

"Here," someone said, holding out a spark. You let them light your cigarette. It was a guy dressed in black. He was tall and pretty. Probably in the audience of the show you guessed, but the stage lights always blanked out the crowd.

"Thanks," 

"Welcome. I saw your show. You're amazing," he complimented, smiling. In the audience then. He seemed too… normal… maybe, to come to one of your shows.

"Thanks," you said again.

"Yeah… First... ah, burlesque show I've been too. We're out for my mate's girl's birthday. It's like, proper dancing and stuff, yeah? You have to practice all the time, I bet? And how do you dance in them shoes?"

"Uh, like you said: practice," you answered. You watched him as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He had one hand behind his back, and the other was holding his lit cigarette. He inhaled.

"Guess girls just born more graceful than guys," he said with a shrug, looking you up and down with a smirk. At first, you thought it was a joke. You laughed a little, but when he didn't laugh too you looked at him carefully. Oh. Bless. He didn't know.

"Girls and boys aren't born different to each other. Girls might be taught to be more graceful, that's all. We can learn to be like that, though," you said to him. He nodded, paused, then looked at you. Slowly his head tilted, and you waited for the fallout.

"Wait. What?"

"What's your name, honey?" you asked him. He smiled as he told you. "Van, babe. Look at me real carefully. What do you see?"

Van's face was all confusion, but he happily took the invitation to run his eyes over your entire body. You could see him notice the small details. The veil was lifted. His face lit up in realisation. "You're…” 

"Not a girl? Yeah. Not completely anyway," you said with a laugh. "Half of the dancers in the show are either drag queens, or gender queer, or… everything else,"

"Fuck. I'd never have guessed," Van said smiling.

"Yeah. We get that a lot. I get that a lot,"

"No, like, you… How… That's amazing,"

"Yeah? You're not weirded out?" you asked, stepping closer. There was no animosity in Van; he rightly didn't feel deceived. Nor were you an object to be gawked at, not a sideshow attraction.

"Why would I be?"

"Some guys come up to me thinking I'm… something else. Get very huffy. Don't want to seem gay, you know? Like that is the worst thing they could be,"

"I'm not like that. You're amazing and beautiful, but like, fuck me, how… What do you look like when you're not like this?" he asked. You laughed out loud. Most people were too afraid to ask. They were scared it was an inappropriate question. You unlocked your phone and found a regular picture of yourself and showed him. Van smiled, looking carefully at the photo. "Wow,"

"Wow indeed."

After that, he didn't slink back off into the shadows. He asked your name, and how you got into "this" and a million other questions that poured out of him so quickly there was hardly time to answer him. Eventually, his friends came looking for him and he introduced you to them. You bid him goodnight and watched him walk away. He stopped though and came back over to you in a little run. 

"I… Like, I wanna see how you do this," he said throwing his hands around, indicating he meant the transformation. "Can I… I don't know…"

"You want to come over and watch me get ready for a show?" you helped. He nodded. "Give me your phone." You entered your number and told him to message you. He smiled and lingered for a second.

"You really are beautiful, you know? Both ways," he said, his tone serious. He pulled you into a hug, and with the high heels you were a little taller than him. He kissed your cheek and walked backwards away from you for a couple of steps before turning and jogging to catch up with his friends. He truly thought you were amazing, and he had no idea that he was too.

…

When you answered the door for Van, you were in jeans and a plain grey t-shirt. He hugged you tightly and followed you into the bathroom. You'd already moved one of the kitchen bar stools in there for him to perch on and watch. He was quiet and his attention was focused. Your roommate came to the open door.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey. Lucy, this is Van. Van, my housemate Lucy,"

"Hi. Are you the one that thought he was a girl?" she asked. Van laughed and nodded. "He's pretty either way, right? Best of both worlds type of thing?"

"Luce…" you warned.

"It's okay. She's right," Van said with a shrug of the shoulders. He wasn't afraid to voice his attraction or affection and it was a gorgeously rare thing.

"We're heading off now. We'll see you after the show, yeah? You're still coming to town?" she asked you. You nodded. "Cool. You can bring him," she motioned to Van. "It was nice to meet you, Van McCann,"

"You too," he replied as she walked away. "She knew my last name,"

"Yeah. Might have mentioned you. I don't know," you said, glancing over at Van's reflection in the mirror. He smiled to himself.

The processes that got the most reaction from Van were: the glueing of eyebrows (many queens shave theirs off entirely, but you preferred to glue), contouring (Van could not understand how something so simple changed the structure of your face so much), and the profound difference fake eyelashes made.

"See, you already have amazing lashes, so in drag you could totally skip that," you told Van.

"Do you think I'd make a good drag queen?"

"Fuck. Yes. Yes, you would," you replied with a grin.

You left Van in the kitchen mixing drinks as you went to get changed. Usually, you would do the entire transformation at the club, but for Van's sake you didn't. Blonde bombshell wig on, padding perfect and not a sequin out of place, you walked high heeled back into the kitchen. Van looked up at you and grinned.

"Seeing it happen didn't change anything! I still don't get it. You're amazing," he said. You were used to compliments, and people fawning over you, but it was different with Van. He wasn't saying 'I wanna bang you because you're a dude in a dress,' he was genuinely in awe of your abilities. He genuinely thought you were stunning.

"I look better like this though, right?" you asked with a one shoulder shrug.

"Not better. Just different. Is that why you do it?" he asked, handing you a drink.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you become... her because you don't like... him, or whatever?"

"No. No, not anymore. When I was a teenager, maybe. Just looking to work things out, or whatever. But not anymore," you said. It was a highly personal question, and you knew that Van's limited interaction with drag queens meant he may generalise your experiences to others. That was something you didn't want to have happen. "It's different for everyone. No two queens would do this for the same reason, you know?"

"Yeah. But just so you know, you really are dead cute as a boy and a girl,"

"A very bisexual thing to say," you replied, fishing for hints about his sexuality. He took the bait.

"I'm not bisexual. I'm pansexual," he said it proudly and it made your little queer heart skip a beat. "Yeah, I had a bi girlfriend once and it was the first time I got told about any of this stuff you know, and she told me about all the different labels. I think I just like people?"

"I think you do too,"

"Yeah. And you're people,"

"I am people, you are right," you replied laughing.

"So…"

"I get it Van. You like me. I like you too, but I won't if you make me late for the show. Did you want to come? We didn't talk about it…"

Van had literally never wanted to go to an event more in his entire life. He held your hand as you walked down the stairs of the apartment building, and opened the door to the uber. You noted all the ways his mannerisms changed from when you were out of drag versus in drag. The subliminal messages about gender he'd been given his whole life shaped the way he moved and talked around you, and it was a curious thing to watch. Van flirting with you as a boy was different to as a girl, and you wondered if that would change the more time he spent around you, and other gender diverse people.

…

Van got the best seat in the house. He sat side of stage watching the routine, and he grinned like an idiot the whole time. When the curtain had fallen and you walked off stage, he grabbed you and held you in a hug.

"Still good second time around?" you asked.

"Better. Definitely better," he replied.

You held his hand and let him sit with you in the dressing room as everyone celebrated the night. People were a little bit obsessed with Van. His normality stuck out in the sea of beautiful weird. He liked the attention though, and he liked watching people switch in their gender presentation as they changed costumes, or got into casual clothes. You sat down next to him and asked if he wanted to come with you to see your friends. He obviously did.

"Should I change, or stay like this? I have a few more lowkey dresses around," you asked.

"Why are you askin' me? Wear what you feel comfortable in," he said.

"Right, but where we're going isn't like this. So… two guys might stand out, you know?"

"Then wouldn't you in a dress stand out more?"

"Yeah, but sometimes I don't… I'm not always in drag. Sometimes I just…" you tried to explain to Van about the blurred lines of your gender. You could hardly figure it out yourself, let alone verbalise it.

"It's okay…" Van said. "If you want to be a boy, good. If you want to be a girl, good. A boy dressed as a girl. A girl dressed as a boy dressed as a girl. Whatever," he said, confusing himself a little bit in the process of making a point, "Whatever, whoever you are, that's good. I just… I think you're beautiful,"

"You've said," you replied, grinning.

"I'm gonna keep saying it."

It was a short amount of time to have someone say something so profound to you.

You changed into an outfit that was certainly not drag, but kept you identifiably girly to anyone that used clothes as a measure of gender. The entire room of people called, "Byeeeeeeee Vaaaaaaan," as you laughed. He blew them a kiss. They loved him already, but not as much as you knew you would.

…

You were playing Fifa with Larry in the lounge room of his and Van's house. It was early, and you had woke up to Little Mary's barking. Van was still asleep, so you let him be. Your Fifa skills were a work in progress, but Larry was a good teacher. You were winning a match as Van padded through the room and headed into the kitchen.

"Tea!" Larry yelled.

"Yep. Babe?" Van yelled back.

"Yes. Thank you," you replied, not yelling because the short space between rooms didn't really call for it. They were loud boys.

"You're the only person he's dated that's bothered to play," Larry said as scored a goal.

"I want to know about the stuff he likes. He does that for me," you replied.

"Yeah. He's good like that. Could just be because you're the only boy he's dated," Larry said. "Not that only boys like football or Fifa or whatever, but you know," he added. They were learning to unlearn gender.

"What?" you asked, pausing the game.

"What?" Larry repeated.

"I thought… He's pan?"

"Yeah. Don't mean he's dated anyone other than girls," Larry said. He smirked at your disbelief. Van walked in with three mugs of tea, putting them on the table. He sat on the couch behind where you and Larry were on the floor.

"What's going on? Why's it paused?" he asked, running his fingers through your short hair.

"Nothing. Pausing for tea," Larry lied, picking him a mug and handing it to you. You sipped and looked over at Van. It explained a lot.

Armed with the knowledge you were Van's first boyfriend, you were better equipped to introduce him to the wonderful world of queerdom. He didn't need much coaching though. He loved everyone and had the single life goal of making people happy. 

You'd overhear the conversations he had with your friends and his. He said, "Nothing else matters, you know? If your family is happy, if your friends are happy, then you're happy." Things like gender labels and the rest of the world's expectations for him were meaningless. All Van wanted was to watch you get all sparkly and pretty on a Saturday night, and show you off to everyone he knew, then wake up with you Sunday morning in boxer shorts and each other's t-shirts to play Fifa with Larry. Lucy was right - best of both worlds. So, it was only set to improve when you ventured out into all the others too.


End file.
